WORLD SPORTS SCENE : Maradona Gets Back of Hand of God

As an example of the worldwide appeal of Diego Maradona, Tom Callahan, a sports columnist for Newsweek and the Washington Post, often tells the story of his visit to Ireland to write about a boxer shortly after soccer’s 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

Although the boxer was not yet home, his mother could not have been more hospitable. The same could not be said for the boxer’s two young brothers, who acted as if a visit by a writer from a major American magazine to their village was an everyday occurrence.

They ignored Callahan, until they overheard him say he had covered the World Cup.

“You met Maradona?” the boys shrieked.

Moments later, they were sitting in Callahan’s lap, captivated by his tales of the Argentine, who, like his controversial goal against England that year, seemed to have been touched by the hand of God.

Maradona is soccer’s equivalent of a Magic Johnson or a Wayne Gretzky, a virtuoso who prefers to conduct. After leading Argentina to the World Cup championship in 1986, he almost single-handedly carried an inferior Argentine team to the final at Italy in 1990.

Unquestionably, he has been the world’s best-known active athlete for at least five years. Even in the United States, he is one of the few soccer players whose name is recognized by most sports fans, joining Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and maybe no one else except possibly Kyle Rote Jr.

Maradona one-upped them Saturday. He made the front page of the New York Times.

But, as has been the case all too often in recent months with Maradona, it was not an uplifting story, certainly not one that will draw excited shrieks from young boys in Ireland or anywhere else. In a routine drug test last month after a game in the Italian League, where he has made his living at the top level of soccer since 1984 with Naples, it was revealed that he had used cocaine.

When Italian League officials meet this week, he could be suspended for two years, a penalty that would be recognized by soccer’s international federation, FIFA. That would prevent him from playing until the spring of 1993, when he will be 32. Even if he returns, it is doubtful that he will be the same player.

That would be a sad end for a player who turned a game that he learned in the Buenos Aires slums into a $9-million-a-year career. But no one can say it was unpredictable. Certainly, the news of his cocaine use was not as shocking as that of another of the world’s most artful and popular athletes, Sugar Ray Leonard.

Six weeks ago, Maradona was linked to an Italian police investigation of a drug and prostitution ring in Naples. According to reports based on intercepted telephone calls, he was a frequent client.

There have also been suggestions in the Italian and Argentine press of drug use involving Maradona since October, when he barricaded himself in his Naples apartment and would not answer telephone calls from family members, friends or teammates.

That was another example of his increasingly bizarre behavior. In November, he refused to travel to Moscow for a European Cup game, complaining of a back injury. On the day before the game, he changed his mind, chartering a plane for $30,000. He arrived in Moscow at 2 a.m., went sightseeing at Red Square with his wife for two hours, got to bed at sunrise and complained because the Naples Coach Luciano Moggi did not use him that night for the entire game.

Maradona has missed several practices and games, including one in November against Florence, he said, because he needed to sleep. Even when he did appear, the magic was fleeting. His team, which won the Italian League in 1990 but has fallen to 11th this year in the 18-team first division, has repeatedly fined him, ultimately suing him for $6 million for breach of contract.

His lawyer has been busy. Maradona also has been involved in a paternity suit in Naples, dragging it out for three years by refusing to submit to a DNA test.

“The source of sublime football in the 1980s has now seen his last lira of credit go down the test tube,” said an Italian sports daily, Tuttosport, after Friday’s announcement. “This time, the fallen idol, the man who is overwhelmed by problems, will not find any pity.”

That, however, is not the rebuke that has struck closest to his soul.

The Vatican newspaper, in its only editorial ever devoted to a sports star, said in December that Maradona is an “ill-behaved diva.”

Once thriving by the hand of God, he now has been slapped by it.

World Notes

Reluctant to drop the soccer-theology theme, we bring you an update on David Icke, a former goalkeeper for Coventry City in the English League, who bills himself as the Son of the Spirit of God. A former spokesman for the British Green Party, he predicted at a news conference last week that negative energies from political turmoil in Northern Ireland will cause Great Britain to be hit by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and tidal waves this year. If the world cannot achieve an environmental balance by 1997, he added, “the rest of creation will have no choice but to cut off Earth from the energy system.”

The International Amateur Athletic Federation, which governs track and field, is racing to beat the International Olympic Committee in re-admitting South Africa. Although IAAF officials were reluctant after a recent meeting in Antwerp, Belgium, to speak officially about the situation, a London-based newspaper, the European, reported that IAAF officials were predicting that South African athletes will compete at the World Championships this summer in Tokyo. One condition attached is that the country’s track and field federation equally distribute sponsorship money between blacks and whites.

Edwin Moses, a member of an IOC delegation that recently returned from a fact-finding mission to South Africa, said he went to a track meet in Johannesburg and did not see one black competitor or spectator. But he said track and field officials in the country assured the delegation they have made significant strides toward integrating the sport. If that is the case, Moses said he believes South African track and field athletes will compete in the 1992 Summer Olympics.

But will Moses be there? After leaving South Africa, he went to Berlin to oversee the development of a new sled that he hopes to use in the four-man bobsled competition at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. He said he still plans to run the intermediate hurdles this year, although he does not expect to be in competitive shape in time for the national championships in June. As a result, he cannot earn a place on the U.S. team for the World Championships two months later.

One of the first outdoor meets for U.S. track and field athletes as they prepare for the national championships will be the April 20-21 Mt. SAC Relays at Walnut. U.S. women in six running events will be involved in a dual meet against Soviet women. In three throwing events, the U.S. women will compete against Cubans. Among the athletes expected to compete at Mt. SAC are Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell, Michael Johnson, Suzy Favor, Lynn Jennings, Steve Lewis, Danny Everett, Andre Cason and Daley Thompson. What, no Sergei Bubka? Meet director Dan Shrum said the Soviet pole vaulter is demanding a $50,000 appearance fee, plus a $100,000 bonus if he breaks the world record.

Sharon Carz of Chicago and Doug Williams of Playa del Rey, third in pairs at the 1990 U.S. figure skating championships but fourth this year, have split. He’s now skating with Tracy D’Amigella. . . . Bart Conner, a member of the U.S. gymnastics team that won a gold medal in team competition at the 1984 Summer Olympics, will drive in the April 13 Toyota Pro-Celebrity Race at Long Beach.